Saturday, May 10, 2014

Financial innovation set to slash the cost of offshore wind energy

The report, Innovative Financing of Offshore Wind, focuses on renewable energy and explores the significant potential for cutting the cost of energy from offshore wind power by reducing financial fees and interest charges, which represent an astonishing 28 percent of project life cycle expenditures. The report is authored by members of the FTI-CL Energy practice, a cross-practice team of energy experts from both FTI Consulting and its subsidiary, Compass Lexecon.

The report is authored by members of the FTI-CL Energy practice, a cross-practice team of energy experts from both FTI Consulting and its subsidiary, Compass Lexecon.

"Offshore wind energy economics are strongly governed by life cycle financial costs, and the potential to reduce these is considerable," explained Aris Karcanias , Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Leader of the Company's FTI-CL Energy practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Although financial costs normally are not expressed in terms of their share of overall capital expenditures, identification of the size of the opportunity to reduce capital expenditures shows the importance of financial innovation in providing cheaper electricity from offshore wind."

"Corporate and institutional investors looking for low risk, long-term and predictable yield investments are signing on pension, insurance and sovereign wealth funds, to name a few," said Athanasia Arapogianni, Consultant and member of the Company's FTI-CL Energy practice. "Innovative financing and an increase in the number of players in offshore wind finance are creating more competition among lenders, which will lead to lower charges, fees and risk premiums on interest rates."

To purchase the FTI Intelligence Innovative Financing of Offshore Wind report in its entirety, can find hereREFLECTIONS ON A POSSIBLE UNIFIED EU FINANCIAL SUPPORT SCHEME FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS (RES): A COMPARISON OF MINIMUM-PRICE AND QUOTA SYSTEMS AND AN ANALYSIS OF MARKET CONDITIONS can get here